𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer’s own words have come back to haunt him after he ditched another policy and racked up his thirteenth humiliating U-turn since entering No. 10. “To correct one error, even two, might make sense,” the Prime Minister previously commented. “But when they’ve notched up 12 U-turns and rising, the only conclusion is serial incompetence.”

When leading the Opposition in 2020, Sir Keir made the remark after the Tories ditched a raft of policies to stave off back-bench rebellions. Now, in 2026, Sir Keir has matched their eye-watering tally of surrenders and gone one better with his latest policy climbdown.

Last night, the government scrapped plans for a mandatory digital ID scheme, which it had previously branded “essential” to stop illegal immigrants slipping into the shadow economy. Digital identity cards will now be optional after the embattled PM ditched the full scheme in the face of mounting pressure.

The climbdown has become the latest policy to be binned by Sir Keir, who is now languishing as the least popular prime minister in history, according to polls. Critics had slammed the now-abandoned scheme, with Big Brother Watch saying it would have been a “honeypot for hackers and foreign dictators, creating huge digital security risks for our personal information.”

Conservative MPs gleefully kicked the latest flip-flop, with Mike Wood MP saying: “While we welcome the scrapping of any mandatory identification, this is yet another humiliating U-turn from the Government. Keir Starmer’s spinelessness is becoming a pattern, not an exception.”

He added: “What was sold as a tough measure to tackle illegal working is now set to become yet another costly, ill-thought-out experiment abandoned at the first sign of pressure from Labour’s backbenches.

The latest debacle is the most recent in a long list of policy twists and turns that have plagued Sir Keir’s time in office. By his own standards, the Prime Minister now stands guilty of the very “serial incompetence” he once accused the Tories of displaying.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves caved to pressure and rushed out a support package for Britain’s beleaguered pub industry after an outcry over crippling business rates hikes. Pubs across the nation had threatened to bar Labour MPs from their boozers in a countrywide protest.

Parched backbenchers turned on the Chancellor over her plans to lift business rate relief on pubs, forcing the Treasury to ditch the plans. Ms Reeves is poised to announce additional support, including further business rates relief and measures to slash licensing red tape.

Last year in December, the Government was forced into a climbdown after months of furious protests from angry farmers. Ministers raised the inheritance tax relief threshold from £1million to £2.5million after “listening to concerns” from the farming community.

But they only did so after a year of protests, including a campaign from the Daily Express to ‘Stop the Family Farm Tax’. The original Treasury plans to treat farmers as a piggy bank by taxing their family assets when passed between generations triggered nationwide outrage, with tractors descending on Parliament and criticism from Labour MPs in rural seats.

Ms Reeves was again in the firing line after kowtowing to backbenchers and ditching plans to keep the two-child benefit cap. She had previously said that keeping the measure, which stopped benefits from being claimed by families with more than two kids, was a cost-saving measure.

However, she was later forced to ditch the scheme and pass the cost of £ 3 billion onto taxpayers, after months of rebellion fermenting on Labour’s own backbenches. The move was branded a “benefits street budget” by Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader.

Workers’ rights were put on the chopping block after Ministers scrapped plans to make unfair dismissal claims from day one on the job. Now the Government wants to introduce the right after six months of service, instead – a major watering down of Labour’s manifesto pledge.

The concession came after businesses voiced fury over potential costs and recruitment challenges. Sir Keir faced backbench anger, with some ministers claiming the U-turn breached the Labour manifesto.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden was forced to reconsider the Government’s decision not to award compensation to the so-called Waspi women. The Women Against State Pension Inequality group claims they were affected by the way changes to the state pension age were communicated.

Securing justice for the Waspi women has been a major campaign by the Daily Express. Ministers have now committed to reconsidering compensation for the embattled pensioners.

Perhaps most damagingly of all, the Government extended the freeze on National Insurance thresholds by three years, breaking manifesto pledges.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto promised: “Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax, or VAT.”

The Government insisted Labour’s manifesto commitments apply only to the rates – not the thresholds.

And in the autumn Budget, the Government ditched plans to raise income tax and extended a freeze on thresholds instead. With previous extensions, millions face being dragged into paying higher rates.

Ministers claimed the changes, which included overall taxes being raised by £26billion, were “fair and necessary”. Despite promising 52 times not to raise taxes on ‘working people’ the Government did so anyway.

Within just a week of Sir Keir’s first anniversary in Number 10, the Prime Minister chucked proposed welfare reforms after a revolt from his own side. The July 2025 U-turn saw changes to PIP eligibility taken out of welfare legislation amid warnings from rebel Labour MPs of the impact on disabled claimants.

A national row over child grooming gangs started in January last year with critics demanding a nationwide inquiry. Sir Keir resisted calls for one and accused those calling for it of “jumping on a far right bandwagon”.

He later confirmed an inquiry would be held. Sir Keir resisted calls for a national probe for months – but in June 2025, he confirmed a statutory inquiry would be held.

In May last year, Sir Keir announced a partial U-turn on his decision to severely restrict payments through means testing. Instead, he opted to give the payment to all pensioners except those earning above £35,000 a year.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling on the legal definition of a woman in April last year, the Prime Minister appeared to backtrack on his previous stance. In March 2022, before entering No 10, Sir Keir said: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that, trans women are women.”

But after the justices’ decision on April 16, he told ITV West Country: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.”

The mounting list of U-turns has left Sir Keir hoisted by his own petard – with Westminster sources now saying his scathing criticism of Conservative flip-flops applies perfectly to his own beleaguered Government.